SF 

.W5 



"The Kellerstrass Way" 



OF 



Raising Poultry 



en 




BY 



ERNEST KELLERSTRASS 




Class 



SF^ff f 



Book.- 






Copyright^ . 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 






The Kellerstrass Way 



or 



Raising Chickens 



By Ernest Kellerstrass 
it 



I give the purchaser of this book the right to make 
and use any and all of the appliances herein contained. The 
owner of this book may employ others to make or build any 
of the buildings or appliances. But persons who do not own 
the book have no right to use any of the plans or drawings. 



Price, $1.00 



1909 

Ernest Kellerstrass 
Kansas City, Mo. 



Copyrighted 1909 

by 
Ernest Kellerstrass 



249146 



to 



The Number of this Book is 



Introduction 



It has been my constant aim in writing this book to use common sense 
and to give the public as much good practical information as I possibly could, 
and remember that this book was written by a man who is out working with 
his poultry every day. It was not written by a man sitting at the desk in the 
office with a pencil, dreaming of what could be done, and if you ever visit 
my farm I hope I will have the pleasure of showing you what we actually do. 

1 have been several years writing this small book, and the reason it took 
me so long was because I would not write anything until I had tried it out 
satisfactorily; and the best advice I can give anyone who is about to embark 
in the poultry business is, start small and learn it as you grow; then you 
are sure of success; and no matter what breed of chickens you start with, buy 
the best you can find. A good foundation is the main thing in any 'line of 
business. 

I bred my first chickens thirty-six years ago and have had considerable 
experience, and my experience has always been that the closer we stay to 
nature, the better we succeed. 

My way of raising chickens may be different from all other breeders in 
the world, but please show me one breeder who has been more successful 
than I have. There may be lots of them who can write how it should be 
done, but where is their farm and where are their chickens? All I can say is 
that I live in Missouri, and if you will visit my farm, I will "show" you chick- 
ens, and show you that we raise them by the thousands, and raise them just 
like I describe it on the following pages. 

Yours truly, 

ERNEST KELLERSTRASS. 



'MBMfewfPf^r - m*§k> ■ "* ,; -- 








A F10CV\ OF CRYSTAL WHITE: ORPINGTON CHICKS ON 
ttELLERSTRASS FARM KANSAS CITY MO, j 

TMEY DO WELL ANYWHERE- ON A CITY LOT AS WELL AS ON THE FARM 



TO THE NEW BEGINNER 



Remember, I have been a good many years writing this book, and it 
is ail by actual experience — no hot air dreams, but actual experience. 

During the summer of 1909, I made a two weeks' trip that cost me 
$150.00, but I received more than my money's worth in experience. About 
two months prior to that trip, a professor of a university came to me and 
wanted to buy some of mj^ Crystal White Orpington eggs, stating that he 
had heard so much about my famous breed of Crystal White Orpingtons, 
and after investigating the matter he believed they were the best all- 
purpose fowl in existence today for egg and meat production, as well as 
fancy. I thanked him very kindly for the compliment, but told him I 
was sorry that I did not have an egg for sale; that every egg that would 
be laid by my hens during that season was already sold and contracted 
for at 75 cents and $2.00 apiece; and you must remember, dear reader, 
that I had about twelve hundred laying hens on the farm at that time. 
But I finally told him that I knew of a breeder of whom he might secure 
some eggs, and I gave him the breeder's address. He sent and purchased 
some eggs and placed them in an incubator. In a little over three weeks 
he called me up over the long distance 'phone and told me that he had 
hatched out about one hundred and eighty of the nicest chicks he had 
ever seen, and you can rest assured that I was very much pleased, because 



I had recommended him to this so-called breeder. But in another week 
he called me up over the 'phone and told me that he had lost over one 
hundred of his chicks. I asked him if they showed any signs of bowel 
trouble, and also about various other symptoms, but he explained to me 
that there were no signs of the various diseases; they just layed down 
and died. I told him I would call and see him the next day, which I did. 
I looked his chickens over and they were the weakest, most consumptive- 
looking things I ever saw in my life. I asked him what he had been 
feeding, and what care he had given them, and various other questions, 
which all seemed to be in regular order. I left him saying that I did not 
know what was the matter with his chickens, but that I would try and 
find out. 

When going home on the car my own mind told me that these chicks 
lacked vitality. While there was enough fertility to produce a germ in 
the egg strong enough to hatch, there was not enough vitality — no doubt 
caused by the parent stock. 

That thing brooded in my mind until I finally said, "I am going to 
satisfy myself." So I took the train and went to visit the breeder from 
whom he had purchased the eggs. Rather fortunate for me, he was not at 
home, and I did not make myself known to the gentleman who was so kind 
to show me through the plant. But of all the filthy, run-down places that 
I ever seen, this was it. About eight or ten different varieties of chickens 
and about two dozen ducks running around — tin cans and filth, such as 
I had never seen before in my life. But I finally found the birds that 
my friend had gotten his eggs from, and there I found one male bird to 
thirty-seven females. Now, dear reader, how could there be any vitality 
under those conditions? You can rest assured that I have never recom- 
mended anyone from that day to this, unless I knew more about the 
breeder's place or had visited it myself. 

So let me say to the new beginner — be sure you know what stock 
your eggs come from. 

Another instance came to my attention this spring. I visited a mer- 
chant one day while in the city, who told me that he had bought an incu- 
bator and that he was going to fill it with some common farm eggs for an 
experiment, to which I made no reply. But in a few weeks I happened 
into this same place again when in the city, which was nothing unusual, 
as I traded there, and he told me of his success with his incubator. He 
asked me to go down into his cellar and examine his lay-out, as he called 
it. I consented, and out of one hundred and forty-four eggs there were 
three measly little chicks. Well! Of course, being well acquainted with 
my friend, I could not help but laugh until I thought I would split my 
sides, and in a joking way asked him if he was going to enter them in 
the show next winter. In the meantime we examined the remaining eggs 
and we found two-thirds of them perfectly clear — infertile — and the 
remaining eggs had chicks in them partially developed, but had died in 
the shell between the twelfth and sixteenth days on account of weak 
germs — lacking vitality. So we came upstairs in the store, he setting up 
the cigars, and we sat down and commenced to talk "chicken talk," as I 



called it. Finally, I told him to get into my buggy and we would drive 
out to the farm and visit the lady from whom he had purchased his eggs, 
and for him to purchase a few dozen eggs so as not to cause any suspicion 
of what our visit might be, and I cautioned him not to make my identity 
known, as it might spoil our mission. Upon entering we were greeted by 
an elderly lady, very neatly but plainly and cleanly dressed, and the nicest, 
cleanest-kept place I ever saw. There were about five acres of a nicely- 
kept lawn, beautiful shade trees, fences, chicken houses and out houses — 
all nicely whitewashed. In fact, I said to myself, "This is the most ideal 
place for chickens to do well that I ever seen." So, after a little chat, 
we went around to visit the chickens. I finally cast my eye on a great 
big, handsome, male bird, with spurs about four inches long. My friend 
asked me what I thought of him. I told him he was a beautiful big bird. 
I then asked the lady how long she had had him. She remarked that a 
friend of theirs had given him to them about eight years ago when they 
left Iowa. After going through the flock I found that all of the six male 
birds that were there were all pets, and for that reason she did not have 
the heart to kill them or dispose of them, and I also learned that each 
and every one of them ran in age from four to eight years old — and then 
expect fertility and vitality ! I never use a male bird over two years old. 

Another case that came to my observation about this same time was 
when a party wrote me that his chicks, from five to eight weeks old, were 
dying off very rapidly. Before I could answer his letter, he sent me a tele- 
gram to come on the first train and he would pay my expenses and whatever 
the bill might be. Now, this party happened to be a customer of mine, and 
raised my strain of birds. So I went to see him, and the morning that 
I got there he had three nice, plump chicks, about five or six weeks old, 
laying upon a board that had died that night or that morning, as he said. 
I took out my pocket knife and cut open the craw of one of them and 
showed him what had killed that one. I found a lath nail, an old rusty 
lath nail, about an inch and a half long in the craw of this bird. Now, if 
you haven't had the experience, just watch your birds, and after you find 
that they have died, just cut them open, and by a little experience you 
will find the cause. This little chick ate this nail thinking it was a worm. 
Sounds ridiculous, but nevertheless it is a fact. I cut open the craw of 
another one — No. 2 — and I found two tacks in this one's craw. I cut open 
the craw of No. 3, and to my surprise I found five tacks in this one's craw. 
Now, then, the cause of the whole thing was that 
he had tacked some muslin over a screen that he 
had there, and just left the tacks and nails falling 
around as they pleased, and these chicks had 
picked them up and swallowed them. A chick 
from the day it is born up until it is almost fully 
developed will swallow tacks, nails, little pieces 
of wire, or anything of that kind, and you have no 
idea the hundreds of thousands of chicks that are 
lost every year by this one cause, and the people 
never know what happened to them. He asked 




me what my bill was. I told him I would not charge him a cent. He 
thanked me very much, and I left for home. 

Another case that comes to my memory at the present writing is 
where a breeder of Crystal White Orpingtons sent for me, and said he 
had lost two hundred and twenty-five chicks in the last three weeks and 
that they must have the cholera. He did not know what to do to stop it. 
Well, I said to myself, there is no such thing as cholera amongst this man's 
chicks, because his place was located on perfectly dry ground, and there 
was no chance for any cholera, roup or any other disease. Nevertheless, 
I went to see him. Now this man's wife was very neat and tidy about 
her hen house, and in the spring of the year she had the hen house white- 
washed every two or three weeks, so as to keep off the lice and mites — 
that is, along in February and March. It was about the 28th of August 
when I went to visit this place. They had forgotten all about the white- 
wash and all about keeping things clean, because they thought the chicks 
had gotten far enough along so they could fight their own battle. The 
first one I picked up I found two head lice on its head right back of the 
comb. The next one I picked up I turned its wing up, looked at its breast 
after turning the feathers back, and I found that it was just as lousy as 
it could be. The next one I picked up had five head lice on it. Now, it 
was awful hard for me to tell these people that their chickens were lousy, 
because I was afraid they would be insulted, because they had always 
written and told me that they took the best of care of them ; and as I say 
in the spring of the year when I visited them, they had a beautiful, dean 
hen house, as clean as anyone might wish to see. But after the chicks 
were hatched they seemed to think that they did not need any more care. 
But when I showed them the lice on the head and all over the body, there 
Was no beating around the bush about it. Now these head lice simply 
eat right down into the brain of the bird, and of course when they reach 
the brain, that affects the spine and then goes down into their legs and 
then you hear a good many people say, "My chicks get weak in the legs" ; 
they look pale and just lay down and die. Not for one mniute will they 
acknowledge, even though they should find the lice, that their chickens 
were lousy. They will tell their neighbors they died with cholera or some 
other disease. Remember, cleanliness is Godliness in the chicken business 
or any other business, and you cannot succeed unless you keep everything 
in good order. 



PM»T!M. VIEW OF THE BREMilMO- 1tN5 0« THE. MUtRSTRftSS FARM KMkXi, cm MO- 



Two Years on the Kellerstrass Farm 



The Following Will Give You an Idea of How Things Are Carried 

On in a Large Poultry Plant. 

Now, on January 1st, we usually start our incubators, lighting them 
up, running them for two or three days so as to make absolutely sure that 
the thermometer is 103. Then we fill the incubator full of eggs. The first 
day we do not touch them. The second day we just simply pull the tray 
out and turn it end for end. On the morning of the third day I start to 
turn my eggs. I turn them twice each day until the night of the eighteenth 
day. I also test my eggs on the ninth and eighteenth days ; some say you 
should test them on the fifth or sixth day, but I wait until the ninth day 
for my first testing, then I am sure. Don't forget that there are millions 
of eggs thrown out annually by inexperienced persons, which would have 
hatched if they had remained in the incubator. The best tester that I 
have found is a candle or a lamp. The old way suits me. 

On the night of the eighteenth day I take a warm, damp cloth, spread 
it over the eggs and leave it on until the morning of the nineteenth day. 
Now the reason I put this damp cloth on is simply to soften the shell. I 
do not care where you live, you have more or less trouble with moisture, 
no matter what kind of an incubator you use, and if you do not use 
moisture to a certain extent, more or less, during your hatch, you will find 
that on the last day you will have a number of chicks that will die in the 
shell for the want of strength to pick their way through. Even with the 
the moisture, I find that there are some of them once in a while that cannot 
pick their way through. In that case, I just simply take my pocket knife 
and pick a little piece out of the egg shell at the big end ; I simply make a 
little opening there for the little chick so he can pick his way through, 
but be careful not to break the inner shell; put him into the incubator 
under a moist cloth, and in that way I find that you can save hundreds — 
yes, thousands — of chicks during the season. But after they are all hatched 
on the twenty-first day, I still leave them in the incubator for about twenty- 
four to thirty hours before I put them in the brooder. No doubt you know 
the chick has enough yolk in it to keep it alive all the way from seventy 
to eighty-five hours without food or water. Now then I have lots of people 
ask me every day when they visit my farm, and a good many write to me 



and say, "What incubator do you use?" Let me say right here that I have 
used something like eight or ten different makes of incubators and every 
one that I have used has been a good incubator, but I will not recommend 
anybody's incubator. I have had a proposition put to me that if I would 
recommend a certain incubator in this book it would net me not less than 
$10,000 a year perhaps. But that is something that I will not do. My 
reputation is not for sale. There is one thing that I can say, though, about 
incubators. They are like an ice box or a refrigerator. You can take a 
dry goods box, or a cracker box, put ice in it in the summer time and it 
will keep. But you take a refrigerator that is well built — good, thick 
walls — and you will find that your ice will keep twice as well and last twice 
as long at half the expense, and it is the same way with an incubator. 
Now there are some incubators that are built like a tin can or a pasteboard 
box. Of course they will hatch more or less, just the same as a cracker 
box will keep ice, but my advice is, get a good incubator, one that is built 
substantial. There are fifteen some odd good makes of incubators made 
in this country, and I would just as lief have one as the other, because I 
have tried pretty nearly every one of them and they are all good, providing, 
however, that you follow the instructions of the maker of that incubator, 
because every manufacturer has different instructions. Let me impress 
it upon your mind right here. Don't listen to what your neighbor says 
as to how he runs his incubator and what he would do, but you run your 
incubator according to the instructions of the man who made your incu- 
bator. He made it, built it, and the Lord knows how much time he spent 
experimenting with it, and he can tell you more in that little book of in- 
structions that he sends out with the incubator than all the would-be expe- 
rienced poultrymen in the world can tell you in ten years. Remember 
what I say — follow the instructions which came with your incubator, no 
matter what they are, but buy a good incubator. There are millions of 
good eggs wasted every year in these so-called tin box and pasteboard box 
incubators, when there are plenty of good, honest, reliable manufacturers 
putting out the best incubators today that were ever manufactured in any 
country right here in our own country. 

Do not go into the chicken business unless you buy a good incubator 
and buy good eggs to put into it. It is just as foolish to pay $20 for eggs 
and put them into a $5 incubator as it is to buy a $40 incubator and fill 
it with $5 worth of common eggs from mongrel stock. 

Now, then, when I take my chickens out of the incubator I take them 
into the brooder house and put them into brooders that I built myself. 
The reason I built them myself is because I have had a lot of experience 
with brooders and I find that with the brooder I built two years ago, out of 
one hundred chicks that went into my brooder house there were ninety-six 
of them lived and grew to maturity. During the season of 1908 and 1909, 
out of every hundred chicks that I brought from the incubator cellar into 
the brooder house, there were ninety-eight of them lived to maturity, but 
you must also remember these eggs came from my own stock and they had 
vigor and vitality, as well as fertility. Now, I want to say right here that 
this sounds absurd. But my books have been shown to, representatives of 



the daily newspapers and magazines and to poultry editors, who have pub- 
lished these records time and again. There is no question in the world 
about it. I did it and have proven it beyond any question of doubt. 

Now, there are lots of people write and ask me, "Do you use the fireless 
brooder, or do you use heat in your brooder?" I have experimented with 
the fireless brooders and with almost every other kind of a brooder in the 
past thirty-six years, and I am just going to give you my opinion on that 
right here. 

The brooder that we use is described on another page in this book. 
It is a fireless brooder; it is a brooder with heat in it; it is an indoor 
brooder; it is an outdoor brooder ; just any way you want to use it. During 
the cold winter months I have them in the brooder house, which is a big 
building with a roof and side walls with plenty of window lights to admit 
sunlight for the little chicks, but a dirt floor, and during the cold winter 
days and nights I light the lamp so as to keep the little chicks warm, 
because they must have heat in bitter cold weather, and if they do not 
get it they will never mature; they will never grow and make good, big, 
stout, healthy, vigorous stock ; mark my word — they won't do it. A chick 
that has once been chilled, if it does not die, will always be a runt. 

But you take it in the spring and summer months, we take this same 
brooder and set it out in the yard, put about fifty chicks in it, and the 
heat of their own bodies is all the heat they will ever need after the first 
or second day. But for the first and second day, I almost invariably heat 
up the brooder for them, unless it is in extremely hot weather. Then, of 
course, common sense teaches us that they do not need heat, just the same 
as common sense teaches us that in extremely cold weather they must have 
heat. There are all kinds of patent brooders and patent incubators and 
new apparatus springing up every day and being advertised and telling 
you how to get rich quick in the poulrty business, but let me tell you hon- 
estly and candidly that experience and common sense beats them all. 
Remember, I have no brooders or incubators to sell; I am simply giving 
you my actual experience. 

Now, some breeders may do better than I can. I am only telling you 
what I have done, what experience I have had, and I guess I have spent 
as much time and money as any living man on earth in the chicken-raising 
proposition. My reputation in the poultry business has never been ques- 
tioned by anyone that I know of. I get higher prices for my stock and 
eggs, and I have won more premiums in one. year than any other living 
man on the face of the earth. You must remember that what I am writing 
here in this book is actual experience and happens right here on my farm. 
It is not a dream put into a man's head while he sits in his office writing 
of what can be done in the chicken business and taking a pencil and com- 
mencing to multiply and count his chickens by the thousands and by the 
millions in his head. Remember, I do not count my chickens when they 
are hatched. I count my chickens along about the first of October, when 
they are laying and in their breeding pens, and not before. 

Now, when I put these little chicks into the brooder after taking them 
out of the incubator cellar, I dip their little beak in some fresh water. 



They do not get any of the water, but it simply frehsens them up; then 
1 put them in the brooder. I do not give them any feed for the first five, 
six or seven hours ; then when I do feed them, I feed them the yolk of 
hard boiled eggs, mixed with toast, just common bread toast. I take this 
bread toast and yolk of hard boiled egg and run it through a meat grinder, 
just the same as an ordinary family uses in their kitchen. Now, the reason 
I give them this toast is because it forms their first grit. I find that in 
giving them sand or gravel, the little chicks do not know what it is, and 
a good many will stand there and just pick the oyster shells, sand or 
gravel, and fill their craws so full that they simply lay down and die. I 
have cut open lots of them and found that to be the case; and if you are 
feeding them grit and sand and will cut them open, you will find what 
there is there and you will find what killed them. 

Now, when I put these little chicks in these brooders, I have good 
black dirt on the ground', covered with a little alfalfa or chaff from the 
barn, and it gives them something to work and scratch on right away. 
About a year ago, when several of the Eastern papers sent their repre- 
sentatives out here to look over my plant, they wrote pages about the 
phenomenal success that I had made in raising 98 per cent of all the 
chicks that were hatched. The only thing that I can say is, the reason 
for this is because I kept them on good old mother earth; that is nature; 
that is natural for them; that is where they should be. 

When I set my brooder outside, I move it every day; just pull it 
back and forth, if it is not over six inches. It gives them fresh grass or 
fresh ground. In the mid-winter, when I have them here in the brooder 
house, I either take a spade and turn that ground over, or when it gets 
stale and all poisoned I simply throw it out altogether and put fresh 
ground in. 

To go back to feeding the little chicks, as I said, their first meal is 
toast and the yolk of an egg. The second day I feed them hard boiled 
eggs and toast the same as the first day, only I grind up the whole egg — 
yolk, white, shell and all. Now the eggs that I use are usually infertile 
eggs out of the incubators. If I haven't enough of these I use fresh eggs, 
because I will feed my chicks and take care of them. I feed them this 
about every two or three hours, but never give them any more than they 
will clean up. If I go around and find that they have not cleaned up 
everything, you can be sure I do not feed them until they have cleaned 
up what I had given them. Fresh water I keep before them all the time. 
On about the third or fourth day I set a little trough in the brooder filled 
with bran, and this trough stays full of bran all the time. It gives the 
little fellows something to go and pick at. It helps to develop their craw — 
and you must remember one thing — that a chicken will never be a big 
egg-producer unless she has a good big craw. She has to have a big craw 
so that she can take care of a whole lot of food, because it is what she 
eats that makes eggs. If she does not eat, you will not get any eggs; I 
will tell you that. At the same time I place the bran before them I start 
to feed a little grain. Now, any of the well advertised chick feeds on the 
market are all right for them. When I feed them grain I sprinkle it right 



on this black dirt that is in the brooder, rake it over with my hand a 
little bit, so that it is kind of buried under the ground, and the little chicks 
commence to scratch for it, and that is what they should do — they have 
to scratch ; they have to work for they have to have exercise, because I tell 
you right now that is what develops your birds. That is what gives them 
muscle, gives them form, gives them strength and makes them grow. 
You cannot raise chickens on a hardwood, mahogany finished, parlor floor 
and expect good results. The nearer and closer to nature you get, the 
more and better success you will have. 

Now, after these chicks get up to about eight weeks old, at which time 
they weigh from two to two and one-half pounds, and you cannot keep 
them from weighing that if you just give them care and regular feed. 
But my Crystal White Orpingtons are the only chickens that I know of 
that will do that, and, as a usual thing, when you see some incubator manu- 
facturer or some brooder manufacturer demonstrating at a poultry show, 
you almost invariably see him using my Crystal White Orpingtons. Why? 
Because, as I say, they develop faster than any breed of chickens on the 
face of the earth that I know of. You can breed them by the hundreds 
or by the thousand, and they will average two to two and one-half pounds 
in eight weeks. Of course, if you raise them and feed them for broilers 
for the market, they can very easily be made to weigh two and one-half 
to three pounds when eight weeks old. 

Now, remember, that not for one minute do I write this book to con- 
demn any breed or any breeder, any incubator, brooder, incubator manu- 
facturer or anything of that kind. But in the last thirty-six years I 
have bred Barred Rocks, White Rocks, Buff Rocks, several of the different 
varieties of Wyandottes, Leghorns; in fact, I have bred about eighteen 
different breeds of chickens. 

Now, I keep the White Orpingtons ; am breeding the White Orpingtons 
exclusively, because I think they are the best in the whole world. Of 
course, every man has his choice and fancy of different breeds. We 
cannot all see it the same way. While it is true, and has been published 
by some of the best judges in the country, and some of the best poultry 
journals in the country have said, that the White Orpingtons were not 
on the map, were not known until I took them up. Of course, I bred 
them White and I bred them up to size. If I had not done it, I would not 
in the season of 1907 and 1908 have won over 
90 per cent of all the premiums that were 
offered in this country in the shows I made. 
That is the reason I call my birds the "Crystal 
White Orpingtons," originated by the Keller- 
strass Farm, because everyone whom I have 
met at all the different shows, in the different 
countries, has said they had never seen any- 
thing like them. Of course, today there are 
hundreds, perhaps thousands, of them being 
bred all over the world, because I have shipped 
to almost every known country on the globe. 




Now, as I have said, when they become eight weeks old, then I turn 
them out and let them rustle for themselves, so to speak. I put them in 
little runways out in the yard, about three feet wide and eight feet long, 
with a little coop at the end, putting twenty or twenty-five to a runway. 
But before I put them in these runways, I sowed these runways with 
wheat, rye and barley and spaded it down about four to six inches deep. 
I go in there every day and turn over one or two spades full of this dirt, 
and of all the picking and scratching that you have ever seen birds do, 
you ought to see these little chicks go after it. This seed that is partly 
sprouted has a little green attached on the end of it, and that is where 
you make them work again, and get the development into them and get 
that vitality into them. I leave them in these runways until they are 
about twelve or fourteen weeks old. It altogether depends on how many 
we have on hand and how many we have remaining in the brooder house 
as to how we have to push and keep pushing and crowding them out. 
But from these little runways, I just simply turn them out over into the 
orchard and there I leave them until fall. They have plenty of room 
there and find plenty of bugs and grasshoppers. I give them grain each 
day and the little wheat bran box is before them all the time. I leave 
them there until about the first or middle of September. Then I com- 
mence to put them into the breeding pens and breeding houses. I usually 
take about one male to every ten females. Let me caution you right here. 

Be sure they are not related. You cannot mate up brothers and 
sisters in the chicken line or in any other line and expect results. Be 
sure they are not related, the male to the females. 

Also see that you have a good male. Remember that the male is 
two-thirds of the flock when it comes to breeding. That is one thing 
I am very particular about — my male birds. Perhaps I will take a 
chance on a poor female once in awhile by mating her up to a good male 
bird, but never will I take a chance on a poor male bird. 

Now, in these breeding pens I put to one male about ten females. 
I put them into these houses. Now these houses have old hay, straw 
or litter of some kind on the floor, all the way from six to eight inches 
deep, and there is where I do my feeding. About seven o'clock in the 
morning I go into these houses and I feed them cracked corn, wheat, oats 
and kaffir corn; just throw it right on this litter. There you are back 
to nature again. I make them work for what they get. They have to 
scratch and dig in this litter. That is what gives them exercise, and a 
hen that does not get exercise — do not believe for one minute that that 
hen will lay. They have to have exercise in order to lay, and then when 
they do lay that egg will have vitality and strength, so that when it 
hatches the chick will live and grow and make a good, stout, healthy chick. 

At noon I feed them sprouted oats during the winter months when 
there isn't any green food. In another part of this book I tell you all 
about sprouted oats. 

Between four and five o'clock in the afternoon I feed what I call 
my mash feed. Now, some breeders feed a mash in the morning and 
feed a dry feed in the evening, because they say the bird should have 



some grain in its craw and let it ferment there and warm them up dur- 
ing the night. Well, of course, we cannot all see it in the same way. I 
do it my way, the other breeder does it his way. I feed the grain in the 
morning, because it simply makes them work and keeps them busy all 
day, and makes them exercise. That is why I feed it in the morning, 
and the mash I feed in the afternoon between four and five o'clock, which 
consists of cut clover or cut alfalfa, steeped in a little boiling water, and 
that is mixed with bran, chops, wheat, oats and some grit mixed right 
in with it, so that they get some grit in their craws to grind up their 
feed and make egg shells, and also fresh meat and bone. Now, I get one 
hundred pounds of fresh beef shipped out here every day from the pack- 
ing house in Kansas City. I buy the neck off of the beef. Then I have 
my bone grinder here and grind it up — fresh meat, bone and all. Now, 
of course, when I say one hundred pounds a day you must remember 
that goes to about eight to ten thousand birds. I figure that each bird 
should have just enough green bone to equal, say, from three to four 
grasshoppers or bugs each day. This meat is mixed right in with this 
mash and with the skim milk of the farm, when we have skim milk, and 
when we do not have it we use water, but of course I prefer the skim 
milk. Lots of times during the year, when I can get it, and do not have 
it on the farm here, I buy skim milk from the dairies around here. I 
mix that all up into what I call a dry mash. I feed it, you understand, 
as dry as I possibly can ; that is, I do not want it sloppy. I want it moist, 
but not what you would call sloppy. That is the last meal they get in 
the evening, but be sure and keep fresh water before them at all times. 
Now, whether my food theory is right or wrong, that is simply a ques- 
tion of opinion among the different breeders. But there is one thing that 
no one can dispute, and that is, that my birds do lay, because I have 
records like no breeder in the world has ever been able to beat or to show, 
so far as egg production is concerned. That is one thing I pride myself 
on and devote my whole time and attention to — the egg production. I 
do not care how fine a Jersey cow you have, if she does not give milk — 
what good is she? And it is the same way with a chicken. No matter 
how fine they are, if they don't lay, what good are they ? When I won over 
90 per cent of the premiums that were offered in this country in the sea- 
sons of 1907 and 1908, and won the sweepstakes at Chicago for having 
the best bird in the show room, over and above all breeds of chickens, 
not barring any, right then and there I said — I have shown them that 
my chickens are all right for the show room. Now I am going home 
and continue on breeding them up for egg production, and since that 
time I have devoted my whole time to egg production, and I am doing 
it at the present day. I do not know that I will ever go into a show 
room again with my chickens; not at least until some breeder makes as 
good a record as I have made during the seasons of 1907 and 1908. Just 
as soon as the poultry journals will show me that there is a breeder who 
has made as good a record as I did, you can rest assured that I am go- 
ing into the show room, and I will beat him. If I don't, I will just simply 
quit the poultry business. But up until the time that some breeder does 



make as good a record as I do, I am going to stay at home and devote 
my whole time to egg production. It is eggs — that is what we need. 
There isn't a breeder in the world today, not barring any, who can show 
that he made chickens produce as much in the egg-producing line as I 
have. If there is, I would like some poultry journal to mention it. The 
poultry journals, as well as the daily newspapers and magazines all over 
the country, have published time and again what I have done. Now, 
remember, dear reader, as I have said time and again, this book is not 
written with a whole lot of fancy words and flowery speeches. It is 
simply written by a man who has had actual experience, and this book 
is written every day as I go along with my experience. It is all written 
from actual facts. 

Now, going back to the chickens — these chickens that are in their 
breeding pens are never left out in the yard or in the runway from about 
November 1st until May 1st here in my country; it all depends upon the 
weather, of course. They stay right in that house, and they have to do their 
scratching, digging, feeding and egg laying right in that house. Now, you 
may catch a nice sunshiny day along in March or April, and you will say, 
well, I am going to let these chickens out; it is such a beauitful sunshiny 
day. But there is cold damp frost in the ground and the sun is draw- 
ing it out, and that hen will go out and walk around on the ground, wet, 
damp and moist; the first thing you know she is standing on one foot 
and then on the other foot, and she will go back to the house and retart 
and not lay an egg again for two or three weeks. There is where you 
lost by letting them out. As I say, my chickens do not go out until the 
first of May — until I know there is no more chance of cold weather or 
frost being in the ground. After the first of May I let them out in the 
runway. They remain in these houses and runways until along about 
the first or middle of July. Then I break up my breeding pens, I sepa- 
rate my males and females arid put them in separate runs. Of course, 
you understand a female will lay just as many eggs without the male 
bird as with him, but they will not be fertile. After the first or middle 
of July, I am not looking for any feritle eggs; don't want them. I then 
commence to feed a very little grain once each day, just enough to keep 
her alive and keep her going. I let her get down just as thin as I feel 
she ought to get, and along about the 15th of August I commence to 
throw the feed into her and feed plenty of sunflower seed. Then you 
ought to see the feathers fall. They seem to shed their feathers all at 
once. The feathers all drop out and she gets her new coat of feathers 
and they come out fine, pure, white and glossy from feeding this extra 
feed of sunflower seed. They get through their molt before the cold 
weather sets in. Along about the 15th of September she is plum through 
her molt, ready to be put into a breeding pen again, and she starts to 
lay, and lays all the whole winter through. Remember, that if you do 
not get your birds to laying by September or October, they are liable to 
not lay until spring. I always get my birds through their molt early, 
so that I may get them started to laying before cold weather sets in, 
and they keep it up all winter. It is the same way with my little chicks. 



I always try to hatch my little chicks early, so the pullets are all matured 
by fall, so they will start to lay and will lay all through the winter. You 
take a chicken hatched in July or August don't you ever believe for one 
minute that you are going to get many eggs from that bird that fall or 
winter; that is simply impossible; she is not matured. Now, there are 
lots of breeders Who will tell you: Oh, hatch in August; you can raise 
plenty of them in August. Yes; that is true, you can hatch and raise 
them in August. But it will be the next spring before that bird is de- 
veloped, if it ever develops to amount to anything. It will be the next 
spring before that bird will start to laying. Now, I do not want any 
summer chickens. I want chickens that will lay all the year 'round. I 
don't want chickens that will only lay in the spring. I want chickens 
that will lay from one fall to another, and that is the kind of breeding 
which my past record and my daily record shows. 

Now, remember that all through this book I am simply trying to 
tell you what I am doing, and I suppose that every bredeer has his own 
way, and we may all differ. But there is one thing that I can say, that 
no breeder in the world can say, and that is — when I sold that pen of 
birds to Madame Paderewski for $7,500 (seven thousand five hundred 
dollars) — remember, five chickens for $7,500 — that is the highest price 
that was ever paid for chickens in the world. 

Remember, when I took thirty hens and made them net me $68.00 
a year per hen, that no other breeder ever made a record like that. And 
besides netting me $68.00 a year per hen, I had three-fifths of the eggs left 
for my own hatching. Now, when I take that all into consideration, I 
just figure that I have perhaps done a little bit better than any breeder 
in this country- While you must remember that I am a life member of 
the American Poultry Association, and I have a good feeling toward 
every breeder of any breed in the world, I want to say to you right here 
— don't you breed my chickens unless you feel that they are the kind of 
chickens you want to breed. By all means, when you start in the chicken 
business, first find- out what kind of chickens you like best. Then go to 
some good, honest, reliable breeder and buy stock or eggs from him. 
Don't breed my kind of chickens if you don't like them, because you will 
never make a success with them. But whatever you do, only breed one 
kind; you will never make a success trying to breed several different 
varieties. Always take the kind that you like best. If you visit me, 
and I have visitors daily — no matter what kind 
of chickens you are breeding — my son and my 
men are always instructed to give the visitor 
all the information they can, because, no mat- 
ter what kind of chickens you breed — if you 
make a success of them, that is what helps 
the poultry business, and every time you make 
a success, no matter what kind you breed, as 
I say, it helps the poultry business, and what- 
ever helps the poultry business helps my busi- 
ness, because I am in the poultry business. 




There is one thing that I cannot impress upon your mind too much, 
and that is this: Buy the best stock and eggs that you can buy, no mat- 
ter what breed you are going to breed. You can go and buy some cheap 
stock or eggs and you will spend a whole year's time and hard work, 
and then you have made a failure of it; you wonder why. That is what 
hurts the poultry business, and anything that hurts the poultry busi- 
ness, hurts my business. For that reason, I say — buy the best stock that 
you can buy, and if you cannot buy good stock, do not start at all. Do 
not go out and buy some cheap mongrel stock or eggs and start in. Do 
not do it. Leave it alone for another year, until you are able to buy 
good stock. 

Now, remember, when you buy this book from me, I simply give you 
all the information that I can, and the actual experience that I have had 
in the poultry business. 







***** 



rsr^fimrr*' 



4 ir 






•-. 



VIEW QN THE KELLERSTRA5S FARM KAN5AS CITY MO., 
HOME OF THE CRVSTftU WHITE- ORPINGTON 



USE MY WAY AND YOU CAN RAISE THESE BY THE THOUSANDS 

How I Made Three Thousand Six Hundred ($3,600.00) Dollars 
in One Season From Thirty Hens on a Lot 24x40. 

Now, at first sight the above seems absurd and looks like an im- 
possibility, but that it has been done by me no one dare dispute, after I 
have been willing to give the names of the persons who paid me the 
money, which in itself is an evidence that no one can dispute. 

The possibilities in the poultry business are so great that no one 
can predict the future. I myself say almost every day — there is no tell- 
ing how much money can be made out of the poultry business with the 
proper amount of care, breeding and energy. 

Now, the thirty hens referred to above were in my thirty dollar 
mating yards in the spring of 1909, as per my mating list of that sea- 
son. I sold these eggs at $2.00 each. Now, why did I receive $2.00 each 
for these eggs? Because they were worth it, and you must remember 
that nearly all of these eggs were sold to breeders of chickens, and a 
breeder wants the best — no matter what they cost — where the new be- 
ginner usually wants the cheapest, and that is why he does not succeed. 

Why were these eggs worth $2.00 each? Because they came from 
the choicest breeders from my whole entire flock, which took care, work 
and scientific breeding to produce, and the breeder, unlike the new be- 
ginner, would rather pay a good price and get started at once with good 
stock. 

Now, no matter how small you start, if you start with good stock 
you are bound to produce good birds which you can dispose of readily at 
a good price, 

The above thirty hens were placed ten in a yard 8x40, right here close 
to my house, with one of my best male birds in each yard. Three times 
each day when I got up from the table I gathered up the scraps and 
went out and fed these thirty hens. There are six persons in my family 
and there were always plenty of scraps for these thirty hens. Now, why 
did I feed these thirty particular hens the table scraps? Because it is 
food that no poultryman can buy, and it is the best in the world for egg 
production, as well as for fertility and vitality. The little potato scraps, 
meat scraps, vegetables, bread crumbs, celery tops, radish tops and onion 
tops — why, there is no grain or manufactured food in the world that 



will beat it, and that is the reason why so many people living in the city 
get so many eggs and good results from a few chickens. Why, if I could 
feed my whole entire flock the table scraps I could show results that 
would surprise the world. These thirty hens received but very little 
grain. Once in two or three days I would throw in a little grain, but 
only to stimulate their appetites. 

You must also remember that besides selling $2,048.00 worth of eggs 
from these thirty hens, I hatched several hundred of their eggs myself, 
and at the same time I returned money to parties, telling them that I 
could not fill their orders, because I was bound to save out enough eggs 
for my own breeding purposes, and at the same time I was selling thou- 
sands upon thousands of dollars' worth of eggs from my other stock at 
$10.00 per setting of fifteen eggs, this being the cheapest price I had 
that season, and returned money every week for orders that I could not 
fill. I simply mention this to show you the possibilities in the poultry 
business. 

Now, the exact results from these thirty hens from September 1st, 
1908, to June 20th, 1909, were as follows : 

Thirty hens made an average of $68 each in ten months from eggs 
alone. These thirty hens laid, between September 1st, 1908, and June 
20th, 1909, four thousand and thirty-three eggs, averaging one hundred 
and forty-one eggs each in a little less than ten months' time. 

Now, I sold one thousand and twenty-four of these eggs for $2,048.00, 
leaving me three thousand two hundred and nine eggs for my own use. 
In other words, I kept three-fifths of the egg production for myself and 
sold two-fifths of the egg production for $2,048.00. Then, after dupli- 
cating the infertile eggs and sorting out I raised four hundred and 
eighteen birds myself from this mating, and I never sold a bird for less 
than $5.00, which can be verified by all my customers. 

Four hundred and eighteen birds at $5.00 each, $2,090.00; $2,048.00 
worth of eggs sold — total, $4,138.00, allowing $538.00 for labor, adver- 
tising and other expenses, leaves me a net profit of $3,600.00. If you. 
are interested, I can furnish you the names of these persons who bought 
chickens from me at $5.00 each. 

Now, the average person will say — how can I get the high prices for 
my stock and eggs that Mr. Kellerstrass gets? Simply by raising good 
stock and advertising it. If you will note there is one item of $538.00 
for labor, advertising and other expenses. Most of this $538.00 was 
spent in taking the birds to the shows, and in that way they were adver- 
tised. Whenever people find out that you have good stock they are willing 
to pay the price, whether it is for fresh eggs, for broilers, for breeding 
stock or show stock. There is always a big demand for a first-class ar- 
ticle at a good price. 

The following are the names and the addresses of the persons who 
paid me $2,048.00 for the eggs from the above thirty hens. 

Names of people who bought and paid $2.00 apiece for eggs from 
thirty special hens in yards 1, 2 and 3, between September 1st, 1908, and 
June 20th, 1909: 



C. A. Anderson 

C. C. Allen 

Thos. F. Burns 

J. S. Brady 

I. M. Bellinger 

Ed Biederstadt. 

George Birk 

P. F. Bartlett 

P. L. Crukshank 

Mrs. M. H. Crawford. 
A. S. Crotzer 

A. D. Dumenil 

Chas. Emmerick 

T. M. Ellis 

W. E. Etzensperger . . 

J. A. Filcher 

Mrs. R. M. Good 

Moses B. Griffing. . . . 

Sig. Goodfriend 

C. D. Gabel../. 

Chas. Gabel 

Thomas E. Hunt. . . . 

John W. Hall 

Mrs. M. D. Harris . . . 

David Hill 

Mrs. J. H. Harnley. . 

W. R. Kendall 

T. E. Lockridge 

B. S. Long 

Dr. C. C. Meredith. .. 

J. L. Mitchell 

Walter Miller 

F. A. Maibaugh 

Dr. A. G. Manns 

C. L. Minnot 

Mrs. Clara Moore . . . . 

L. 0. Miller 

T. W. Nichols 

J. Boyd Pantlind 

J. M. Phillips 

J. K. Pollock 

J. E. Richardson 
Herbert C. Ryan 
Mrs. J. L. Richardson, 

J. H. Snyder 

Mrs. J. W. Thomas . . . 
H. C. Williamson 
Sidney L. Wright 



Spokane, Wash 15 eggs $30 matings- 

Kenosha, Wis 

Colorado Springs, Col. 
Parker's Landing, Pa. 

Mohawk, N. Y 

Madison, Wis 

Hamilton, Ont., Can.. 

Grafton, W. Va 

Denver, Colo 

Shepardstown, W. Va. 

Lena, 111 

Bartlesville, Okla. . . . 

Dayton, Ky. 

Rockford, 111 

Willoughby, Ohio. . . . 
Sacramento, Cal. . . . 

Chariton, Iowa 

Shelter Isl. Hts., N. Y. 

Anaconda, Mont 15 

Burlington, N. D . . . . 

Hawkeye, Iowa 

Blue Island, 111 

Northfield, Minn. . . . 

Richland, Iowa 

Salina, Kans 

Zion City, 111 

Independence, Mo. . . 

Liberty, Ind 

Little Sioux, Iowa . , . 

Pittsburg, Pa 

Farmington, Utah. . . 
Waynesburg, Pa. . . . 

Liberty, Ind 

Oconomowoc, Wis. . . 

Jeanerette, La 

New Bloomfield, Pa. . 
Philadelphia, Pa. . . . 
Portsmouth, Ohio. . . 
Grand Rapids, Mich. 

Minden, La 

New Castle, Pa 

Shreveport, La 

Sault S. Marie; Mich. 

Nevada, Mo 

Burns, N. Y 

Strathcona, Alb. Can. 

Memphis, Tenn 

Germantown, Pa. . . . 



-$30.00 
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30.00 



Ralph E. Woods Shelton, Neb 

Paul E. Hatch. ..... Piano, 111 

J. H. Barnes Garfield, Wash 8 

L. C. Bolick Brighton, Tenn 

Eliza M. Chatfield . . . Seymour, Conn 

Dr. J. B. Crist Golconda, 111 

Dr. R. S. Dombaugh . . Waldo, Ohio 

F. R. Dunn. Fruitvale, Cal. ..... 

Dr. F. C. Frisbie Equinunk, Pa 

C. H. Ferran Toccoa, Ga 

E. M. Faust Youngstown, Ohio. . . 

M. B. Glotfelty Sharpsburg, Pa 

Chas. B. Garrison .... Fairfield, Iowa 

0. S. Greenwood Maiden, Mass 

W. F. Gerhart Pocahontas, Iowa. . . 

C. W. Gillam Windom, Minn 

J. W. Hirst Woodriver, Neb 

P. J. Harllee Chattahoochee, Ga. . . 

E. C. Hoffman Wheeling, W. Va 

Rev. A. A. Jasper. . . . Augusta, Mo 

W. H. Kildow Tiffin, Ohio. 

Edwin J. Leonard . . . Elkland, Pa 

W. H. Morris Knox, Ind. 

Jas. T. O'Brien Cascade, Iowa 

Mrs. W. A. Richards . Denton, Texas. ..... 

Lorenzo Rogers Aiken, S. C 

S. S. Spencer. . '. . . . . E. Cleveland, Ohio . . . 

Chas. F. Sherrard .... Ladd, 111 

C. S, Simpson LeClaire, Iowa. ...... 

L. K. Thompson Princeton, 111 

Mrs. Mary Zastrow. . Amhurst Jet., Wis. . . 

L. C. Zeak Hibemia, N. J 

A. B. Bryan Danielsville, Pa 

A. B. Collins Yates Center, Kans. . 

W. D. Stoyer .... Schuylkill Haven, Pa, 

Alice K. Williams .... South Omaha, Neb. . . 



10 



30.00 
30.00 
$16.00 
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16.00 
20.00 



m^mr 



Total '. $2,048.00 



The above is a record that no breeder in the world can show, barring 
none. Mr. Grant M. Curtis, editor of the Reliable Poultry Journal, wrote 
a personal letter to each one of the above parties to satisfy himself, and 
then stated that it was the most remarkable case that he had ever seen, 
and that it just showed the possibilities in the poultry business. 




GETTING THEM READY FOR THE SHOW 



How I Prepare Birds for Show Room to Win. 



Now, I can only tell you how I prepare mine. No doubt different 
breeders have different ways. But you must remember that in 1908, 
the last year that I showed, I won 90 per cent of all the premiums of- 
fered, besides winning the sweepstakes at the Chicago Show for having 
the best bird in the shoiv room, over all breeds, including the American, 
English, Mediterranean and Asiatic classes. 

Then I said that I had accomplished what I had worked for, and I 
have never shown since. 

But the following season my customers, who bought stock and eggs 
from me, won seven hundred and thirty-eight first prizes. Certificates 
signed by the Secretaries of the various shows vouching for the above I 
have published at different times in the poultry journals. 

Now, in preparing birds for the show room. About four weeks be- 
fore the show, I go through my various flocks and I pick out my best 
specimens, bring them up to the conditioning house, and from day to 
day for the following two weeks I look them over and keep sorting them 
out until at the end of two weeks I have nothing but the very choicest, 
high-class specimens left. 

Then I take a tub of warm water and some good, pure, white soap, 
and I wash the bird thoroughly, rinse him in another tub of clean water, 
then place him close to the stove and let him dry.- When he is dry I put 
him in a small coop with nice, clean straw in the bottom, the coop having 
been previously prepared. I leave him there for one week, feeding and 
watering him regularly; then comes the final cleaning for the show. Al- 
ways use soft water. 

I get three tubs, set them in a row. In the first tub I have my 
warm soap suds, in which I give him a good scrubbing; then I give him 
a good rinsing in tub number two, in good, clean, soft water; then I 



rinse him again in tub number three, which is clean water with bluing 
in it just the same as you would use in washing a white shirt, collar or 
a pair of cuffs. Then I rub him with a coarse towel until I cannot get 
any more water out of his plumage. Then I place him in a nice, clean 
coop with clean straw in it, next to a red hot stove. When he is about 
half dry I sprinkle corn starch — remember powdered corn starch — all 
over him; that will give him that nice fluffy appearance when he be- 
comes thoroughly dry. But never allow your bird to sit down while he 
is drying, because if you do, his body and breast feathers will become 
ruffled and shaggy, and it will spoil his looks. 

Now the bird is ready to be shipped to the show room. But you 
are not through yet. Oh, no! The finishing touch is to be put on, and 
that I do the first morning in the show room. I take a small finger nail 
file, or a fine piece of emery paper, and I rub and polish his beak and 
his toes. Then I take equal parts of alcohol and sweet oil and a small 
piece of flannel or woolen cloth, and I rub the above solution on his comb, 
wattles and feet, and it gives him that beautiful, healthy color so much 
admired by every one. 

Now the above seems like a lot of work and bother, — but remember, 
when you go to the show room you go to win, and a few blue ribbons 
may mean thousands of dollars to you. 

Now, this one article is worth one hundred times the price of this 
book to any poultryman, because I can say frankly it has brought me 
thousands upon thousands of dollars — knowing how to condition your 
birds so they will win. 

As soon as you win a few blue ribbons, people will begin to inquire 
about the price of your eggs and stock, and you at once will find out 
that you can get $5.00, $10.00 and $20.00 per setting for your eggs in 
place of having to sell them to the market for thirty or forty cents per 
dozen. 

I say from experience you will never succeed in the fancy poultry 
business until you take your birds to the show room, and then place an 
advertisement in some good paper and you will find out how easy it is 
to make money out of the poultry business. 

I sold a doctor in Pennsylvania his stock and eggs with which he 
started in the spring of 1908. The next fall he won blue ribbons at 
Pittsburg, Cleveland, Chicago and numerous other large shows. He vis- 
ited my farm the next spring and told me that he had to return money 
almost daily; that all the eggs he had to spare he had sold at $20.00 pe" > 
setting of fifteen eggs, and that it was impossible for him to anywhere 
near supply the demand, and that it had beat any investment ^e had 
ever made. 





THE ABOVE IS A PICTURE OF MY FAMOUS 
$10,000.00 HEN "PEGGY" 



THE ABOVE IS A PICTURE OF A PEN I SOLD 
FOR $7500.00 



How I Raised "Peggy," the Famous Ten Thousand ($10,000) Dol 

lar Hen, and the Famous Pen of Five Birds That I Sold 

to Madame Paderewski for Seven Thousand 

Five Hundred ($7,500) Dollars. 



Now, I have had breeders ask me that question a thousand times — 
how I raised them? All I can say is that I raised them just the same 
way as I raised all of my other chickens. Go through your flock, study 
your birds all the time, every day in the year, every time you feed. 
When you see a good bird, pick her out, bring her up, put her in a small 
yard ; watch her, study her, and see how near she comes up to the stand- 
ard of perfection. When you get about eight or ten of that kind sorted 
out, put them in a breeding pen to the best male bird that you can find, 
one that is absolutely perfect, or as nearly so as possible, and you may 
rest assured you are bound to raise good birds. Will they all be good, 
you may ask; will they all be No. 1 birds? Remember, my reputation 
is at stake in this book, and for that reason I will tell you, No ! As the 
old saying is, "There is always a black sheep in every family." It is 
the same in raising chickens, swine, horses, cattle or anything else. You 
are always apt to find runts, no matter how fine they have been bred. It 
is the same with the chickens, but if we breed from good stock we are 
not apt to find very many runts. I find runts occasionally in my best 
matings. Then again, I produce some fine birds once in a great while 
in our cheaper matings. A bird that is owned by a breeder in the East 
that I consider almost as good as "Peggy," came out of a $10 setting of 



eggs that he purchased from me. She won at some of the iargest shows 
in the East last season. 

Now, these are things that happen once in awhile, but common 
sense teaches us that like will produce like — ninety times in a hundred. 
Otherwise, it would be time wasted for breeders of horses, cattle, poultry, 
or anything else, to try and breed for perfection. 




THREE POUND BROILERS AT TEN WEEKS OLD 




Now, the above question has been asked me thousands of times. 
All I can say is that I can tell you of what experience I have had, and 
of a few cases that have been brought to my attention. Now, my honest 
and candid opinion is, in fact, I know positively, that there is money, 
and good money in all three of the above propositions, no matter which 
one a person would take up, or if a person would take up all three of 
them. All that it requires is the same as in any business — time and 
attention. 

Now, I know of one party in particular who is breeding Crystal 
White Orpingtons. She sells her little chicks to the market as squab 
broilers when they are from four to five weeks old. They bring her all 
the way from twenty-five to thirty cents apiece. I have known this lady 
to sell on an average of forty of these squab broilers per day. Then of 
course there are a good many who raise for broilers only ; keep the birds 
and feed them for broiler purposes, and sell them when they become 
eight to ten weeks old, at which time they weigh from two and one-half 
to three and one-half pounds. 

But let me add right here, that if you do raise for market, it is only 
a question of time until you become a fancier and breed for fancy only; 
at least that is the history all over the world with breeders. They will \ 
start in raising for market. In the first or second year some one will 
come along and see a very good bird in their flock, because it is true if 
you raise for market you will surely raise lots of birds, and where you 




TWO AND ONE-HALE POUND BROILERS AT EIGHT WEEKS OLD 



raise lots of birds there must be some few, more or less, exceptionally 
good ones. You will immediately sell a bird for $25 or $50. Then is 
when you begin to open your eyes. You will learn more about how to 
breed your birds for fancy purposes, and it is only a question of a few 
years until you are raising two or three hundred for show purposes in 
the place of two or three thousand for market purposes, because the two 
or three hundred will bring you more money, with less time, than the 
two or three thousand did for market purposes. 

It is the same way with the egg plant proposition. Now, of course, 
if you figure out correctly and give it the proper amount of time, care 
and attention, there is no question in the world but what there is good 
money in an egg plant. You must remember it only costs from "ninety 
cents to one dollar and twenty-five cents" a year to keep a hen; it all de- 
pends on where you are located, on account of the price of grain. You 
can readily figure on getting twenty-five cents a dozen for your eggs in 
almost every market in this country. Of course, there are some mar- 
kets paying a good deal more, but I am figuring on the average price 
of twenty-five cents a dozen. So you must remember that your hen only 
has to lay from forty-eight to sixty eggs to pay for her feed for the 
whole year. 

Take for illustration that you have good stock from a good egg lay- 
ing strain; these birds ought to lay you the first year on an average of 
one hundred and eighty eggs. The reason I say on an average of one 
hundred and eighty eggs is because I can show you lots of my customers 
who are breeding my birds that get over two hundred eggs, and some 
of them as high as two hundred and fifty and two hundred and sixty 
eggs from a hen in a year. But take, for an illustration, your hen will 
lay one hundred and eighty eggs per year, that hen would earn $2.50 
over and above her feed. In other words, one thousand hens would earn 
$2,500.00 in one year over and above the cost of their feed. Now, how 
many men would it take to take care of one thousand hens? Let me say 
right here, if you start in the poultry business in a small way, say, with 
a pen of good birds, or two or three settings of eggs, the second year 
you can very easily have one thousand hens — good hens — after culling 
the culls, raised with your own hands. Now by the time you have raised 
one thousand good hens yourself, after selling off the culls to the market, 
by that time you will have experience enough that you can handle one 
thousand hens just as easily as anything in the 
world. 

But the egg plants are like the broiler 
plants. I could cite you to hundreds, yes, per- 
haps thousands, of breeders right here in this 
country, who started in for broiler or egg pro- 
duction, and they are today the most noted 
fanciers we have in our show rooms, because 
I want to say right here, that no matter which 
you breed for, you are bound to breed some 
extra good, choice birds, and just as soon as 




you sell one single bird for $50 or $100, right then and there you are going 
to give your birds more attention. You are going to pick out the best ones ; 
you are going to pick out the ones that are bred the most perfect and 
the most true, and mate them up separately. Before you know it you 
will be in the fancy business, because there is no question in the world 
but that it is the most profitable in the whole lot in my way of looking 
at it, because you must remember that birds to sell for fancy and to sell 
for good, big prices, they must be show winners, and they will never 
be show winners unless they are bred perfect, and whenever they are 
bred perfect, then, of course, you have good birds. So do not think for 
one minute that chickens that are bred for show purposes are no good 
for broiler purposes or for egg production. That is a mistake, because 
a chicken that wins in a show room must be perfect, and whenever they 
are perfect, then of course you have good stock to breed from. 

Just stop to think — I get $30.00 for fifteen eggs. The farmer would 
have to sell one hundred (100) dozen eggs at thirty cents a dozen be- 
fore he would get $30.00. Isn't that conclusive evidence that it pays 
to raise good stock? That has been my experience in going along, and 
also in watching others in the broiler business, in the egg plant business 
and in the fancy business. 




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On the Opposite Page I Show a Drawing of My Fireless Brooder, 
or Brooder With Heat in It, or Outdoor Brooder, or In- 
door Brooder, Just Whichever You May 
Want to Call It. 

The first one I ever built cost me thirty-five cents for the window 
sash, thirty cents for the two-inch galvanized pipe and elbows and twenty 
cents for the lamp, making eighty-five cents all told. The balance of 
the brooder was built out of old boxes. Now, when I have these brood- 
ers indoors in the brooder house, in the winter time, I do not use any 
heat after the first few days, and I take the window sash out and in 
place of it I use a frame of the same size as the window sash with a 
one-inch mesh poultry wire tacked over it to keep the chicks from jump- 
ing out. I also use this poultry screen in the brooder in place of glass 
in April, May and June when the weather is nice, when I have the brooder 
sitting out of doors. In place of using a glass chimney on the lamp, 
which is always breaking, I just take a baking powder can or a piece 
of tin and make a chimney to fit the lamp, and make it small at the top 
so that I can insert it into the two-inch pipe that goes through the 
brooder. When putting the tubing in your brooder always see that the 
outlet is a little higher than the inlet; otherwise the heat will not cir- 
culate properly and your lamp might smoke. In the hover part of the 
brooder I have a board floor covered with chaff or cut alfalfa, or cut 
clover. This we clean twice a week. Always remember cleanness is 
the road to success in the poultry business, and practice makes perfect, 
and experience is the best teacher of all. This brooder will hold fifty 
chicks for the first four or five days. Then reduce it to twenty-five, and 
when they become three or four weeks old you ought not to keep more 
than from fourteen to sixteen in the brooder; the fewer the better, as 
you will never make a success if you try to crowd your chicks; give 
them room, give them a chance to grow. 

I know of a lady who bought a setting of eggs from me one winter. 
She put them under a hen and hatched twelve chicks. A dog killed the 
hen the first day. The lady took the chicks, put them in a basket and 
put a woolen rag over them at night time, and raised every one of them. 
Was it a woolen blanket and basket that she used for the brooder that 
raised them? No. It was the care she gave them. I do not care what 
kind of a brooder or incubator or system you use, if you do not give your 
chicks the care they should have, you will never succeed. 

Good stock is the first thing; cleanness' and the proper amount of 
care is the next thing, and that is the road to success in the poultry 
business. 




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OPEN FRONT POULTRY HOUSE 



On the Opposite Page is a Drawing of My Kind of a Poultry 

House. 



Doctors say the best remedy for the human being is fresh air and 
plenty of it. There are more and more people who are adopting the 
system of sleeping out of doors every day. About twelve years ago I 
adopted the same principle with my chickens, and I find that my chickens 
are always healthy — never sick — no such thing as roup or sick birds 
exist on my farm, and my chickens are always healthy and stout. Oth- 
erwise they could not stand the strain of shelling out the eggs the way 
they do. Now, I build these houses nine by eighteen feet each. In that 
way I can always use eighteen-foot lumber without cutting to waste, and 
as fast as your business grows you can always add to it. You can make 
them from nine feet long up to nine hundred feet long, or as long as 
you like. You can use a dirt floor, providing your ground lies high and 
dry. Otherwise I would advise putting a board floor in them, but I pre- 
fer a dirt floor. But you have to keep your birds away from moist, 
damp ground if you expect them to do well. Moisture and dampness 
will bring on sickness quicker than anything I know of. I also clean the 
dropping boards in my hen houses daily; whitewash them twice a year 
— -spring and fall. Then I dust my hens every four weeks with lice pow- 
der, because a lousy hen or an over-fat hen will not lay enough eggs to 
pay for her feed. 

Going back to the poultry house, the open space in the front and 
the partitions are covered with two-inch mesh poultry wire. The drop 
curtains are made out of ordinary unbleached muslin. We never drop 
these curtains only on very cold nights or bitter cold days. The drop 
curtain that drops against the roost we never use until the thermometer 



registers way below freezing. The trap nests and feed boxes and drink- 
ing fountains can be placed in the houses anywhere where it is most con- 
venient. I cover the roof with some good roofing paper and also the 
outside of the north wall. Of course all of my houses face the south. 
If you haven't a south front, face them east, but never face your house 
to the north. 




THE ABOVE ARE THE TYPE OF MALE BIRDS THAT I USE IN MY BREEDING PENS. THEY PRODUCE 

SHOW WINNERS AS WELL AS BIG EGG LAYERS 



WORTH KNOWING. 



Experience is the best teacher. 

If you start at all, start with good stock. 

Cleanliness is Godliness in the poultry business. 

You can keep a good hen just as cheaply as you can a poor one. 

Have plenty of grit — the sharper the better — available for poultry. 

When hens stop laying they may often be started again by change 
of feed. 

The successful breeder never goes to his neighbor for advice. "He 
hasn't time." 

There are only two classes of people who never make a mistake — 
the dead and the unborn. 

Protect your brooder chicks from cold, wet weather, if you don't 
want them to have bowel trouble. 

Never allow incubator chicks to become chilled. One-half the ills 
of young chickens arise from this cause. 

To follow nature in hatching is generally the best plan. Little chicks 
and warm weather work together in a harmonious way. 

Don't feed corn alone. Give the hens some wheat and oats if you 
want plenty of eggs. Corn makes fat rather than eggs. 



It hardly Jtever pays to doctor a sick chicken, but it does pay to use 
the most improved methods to prevent disease. 

It is useless to expect success with incubator chicks without a thor- 
ough understanding of feed and care for them. 

Keep your poultry house dry. Chickens can stand cold if it is dry, 
but combined with dampness bad results are almost sure to follow. 

Try shaving some young sweet corn — or even field corn — for the 
young chicks and see how greedily they devour it. 

Young chicks should be kept somewhat hungry rather than incur 
risk of overfeeding, especially if they are taking little exercise. 

Do not stuff your hens, thinking that you make them lay. Throw 
feed in the litter and make them work for their meals. 

Eggs are the foundation of all poultry production. A few people 
place form and feathers first, but they do not measure up with the rest 
of mankind. 

When hens lay soft shelled eggs it is a sign they are too fat. Cut 
down the amount of grain and feed more vegetables and green food. 

Coal ashes thrown about the poultry house are sure death to the 
small, blood-sucking mites. Use plenty of them and keep on using them. 

The beginner should confine his efforts to one breed is an old in- 
junction, but a wise one. It will not pay to have your attention too much 
divided. 

If brooder chicks get chilled keep up the heat and give light feed 
for a few days. With proper care on this line they will soon come 
around all right. 

Don't feed chicks with corn meal dough. Give them finely cracked 
grain or rolled oats. The tendency now is to give all feed dry. 

No hen can do her best roosting in trees. She should not be ex- 
pected to do well when improperly fed. She should be cared for as if 
she were an egg producer. 

In starting with an incubator on the farm, use a small size. It is 
easier to fill it with eggs and you can handle it more readily. 

Green food supplies mineral salts. The difficulty is the small amount 
of salts to bulk of food. Yet a little green food keeps the blood cool in 
mid-summer weather. 

Learn to figure out a balanced ration for your fowls when you can, 
but most farmers will learn by practice to give the right feed in proper 
proportions. 

It is a mistake to try to keep too many hens for the room you have. 
Better drop off a lot of them and give the rest a chance. You will do 
better, and so will the hens. 

Keep the sexes apart till needed for breeding purposes. This will 
insure greater fertility of eggs, and infertile eggs keep better for market 
purposes. 

A nervous hen cannot be relied upon for a good setter. The chances 
are that she will get excited when the chicks come out and leave the 
nest permanently. 

Keep plenty of shade and green food all through the hot months. 



Also keep the dust boxes full and the water vessels supplied with pure, 
fresh water. 

To get rid of disease and vermin the fight must be constant. Sul- 
phur is about the best thing to keep off lice, and wise care and feeding 
will prevent disease. 

Beware of overcrowding young chicks, or any other. There must be 
plenty of room in the brooder, on the roost and in the range. This is 
why small flocks succeed. 

No one grain alone will keep chicks or fowls in good condition. A 
variety must be, had, and if they cannot obtain the variety by foraging 
it must be fed from the farmer's bins. 

To have early winter eggs, put your hens through the moulting 
period before summer is over, while eggs are cheap. A fast of two or 
three weeks, followed by rich feeding, does the work. 

If the hen will not pay for her board in eggs, she should be made 
to yield a profit by being slaughtered and her carcass sold. No poultry- 
man should keep drones; he cannot afford it. 

When the hen is through setting burn all the old nesting material, 
disinfect the nest box, and give it a coat of liquid lice-killer to make a 
good job of it, and then put in fresh straw. 

Experiments have proved that a hen in good condition will eat on 
an average four ounces of grain in the morning, two ounces of grain 
at noon, and three ounces of mash in the evening. 

Dampness in the poultry house must not be allowed. Eemember 
also that fresh air is a tonic, and that poultry of all kinds will do much 
better if their roosting quarters are well ventilated. 

Pure water on the farm. Have you got it? It may look clear and 
good, but are you sure that the well is so located that it is not being 
contaminated by surface water or some other agency? 

It is just as well to have a well bred chicken as a well bred horse 
or cow. Any amount of food and care will not make a mongrel as profit- 
able as a pure-bred under the same conditions. 

One of the best ways to disinfect a brooder is to open it wide, take 
out the hover, and let the midday sun shine on both for a couple of hours. 
The sunlight will kill the germs it reaches. 

In building the house, do not have the roosts too high. A foot or 
two is high enough. There is danger of fowls injuring themselves flying 
down from a high roost, especially the heavier birds. 

Old hens commence laying late and leave 
off early. Old hens, unless they are very val- 
uable as breeders, are seldom profitable to keep, 
considering their record throughout the year. 

Green bone and scraps of waste can often 
be bought at the butcher shop at a reasonable 
price, and this makes an excellent feed for poul- 
try if given to them while fresh. Never feed 
decayed meat. 

Start with the breed you think you want, 
and then stick to it. The stock raiser who 




shifts every few years to a new breed never gets anywhere in his opera- 
tions, except nearer to the poor-house, perhaps. 

Filthy drinking vessels are the cause of many serious ailments of 
fowls. Continued drinking of impure water will produce what is com- 
monly termed cholera, and the flock is soon wiped out. 

Remember, the hen when laying needs about twice as much feed as 
she would if not laying. Like any other machine, she must be furnished 
with material from which to manufacture her finished product — eggs. 

Once a week, at least, disinfect the drinking fountains and dishes 
used by the poultry by scalding them in boiling water. Infectious dis- 
eases are spread very rapidly through the feeding troughs and drinking 
fountains. 

When the ground is frozen and snow-covered, where do your biddies 
procure their grit, or teeth, unless you have thoughtfully provided it? 
Some farms are all picked over, and there is no grit to be found there, 
even in summer. 

With the rapidly increasing prices of beef, pork and mutton, the 
poultry comes to the relief of the people. Eggs take the place of beef- 
steak for breakfast, and a roast fowl will be served for dinner instead of 
roast pork, beef or mutton. 

Eggs are made up largely of liquid matter. When you keep a hen 
shut away from water or some kind of drink, depend upon it you will not 
get eggs very long. Keep a good lot of nice fresh water where the hens 
can get it all through the day. 

Chicken should never be eaten the day it is killed. The tenderest, 
freshly-killed chicken will be tough as soon as the animal heat has left 
the body. In about twelve hours, however, the muscles will relax and it 
then becomes acceptable for food. 

Immediately after dressing poultry, it should be thrown into ice cold 
water, and allowed to remain there until all the animal heat has left the 
body. Neglect to do this is very apt to cause the carcasses to turn green 
in parts by the time they reach their destination. 

A hen that begins to lay in November and lays even as many as ten 
eggs a month through to the end of February, at the prices that prevail 
in any town, has paid for her feed for a whole year, and all she produces 
the remaining eight months of the year is clear profit. 

It is attention to little things that makes for success in the poultry 
business. One of these little things. is to rinse out all the drinking vessels 
before putting fresh water in them. Filth is a srue breeder of disease, 
and disease means disaster, and disaster is not what you are looking for. 

Poultry, like sheep, can stand a great deal of cold, if it is only dry 
cold. Hens that are given plenty of exercise in a sunny, scratching shed, 
that may be entirely open on good days and curtained with cloth on stormy 
days, will be healthy and lay in the coldest weather if fed properly. 

If your old stock has to be kept confined in a small yard all summer, 
don't forget to give plenty of green feed. Lettuce makes an ideal green 
feed for fowls. Better plant a little patch for summer use. The chicks 



would like it, too. Cabbages and mangels should also be planted for fall 
and winter feed. 

The hen that does all her laying during the summer should be disposed 
of along with her chicks. Her small profit cuts down the average and 
discourages the fancier. It costs just as much to keep, her as the others, 
and the room she and her offspring occupy should be given to the winter 
layers and their chicks. 

Don't be in haste to complain when you have bought a setting of eggs. 
The trouble may grow less, or entirely disappear, by waiting. The ap- 
pearance of newly hatched chicks is often deceptive. It takes time for 
color to settle right. Black Minorcas often show white in the chick stage. 
Gray in chicks of the white breeds may be a good sign rather than a bad 
one. Postpone sending letter of regret to your dealer and you may find 
it unnecessary to send it at all. This will save unpleasant feelings on 
both sides. 

Many a failure, especially among farmers, can be traced to inbreeding 
their poultry. I believe that this is not generally practiced from a desire 
to do so, but because of neglect. It is not attended to when it should be 
done, and when it is called to mind it is generally too late to purchase 
breeders, and another year of inbreeding is practiced. That is one reason, 
and another is due to the fact that it costs more to get good males from 
a breeder than it does to select a few of the best in the flock for that 
purpose. 





A PfcN OP CRYSTAL WHITE. OBPINGTONS 



THEY DO WELL IN ANY CLIMATE 



How to Keep Eggs Fresh, 



Now, there are hundreds of different ways — with lime water, and a 
whole lot of other different ways of how to keep eggs fresh. But, like 
everything else in this book, I am only going to tell you just how I keep 
mine fresh. 

After the first of July, or along about the first of July, when the 
breeding season is over with, I generally separate my males and females. 
Then the eggs are infertile that the hens lay from that on, and all the 
eggs that I get off of my farm from the first of July until about the middle 
of September or the first of October, when the breeding season starts 
again, I simply take an old whiskey barrel and put bran in it and I set 
the eggs in there with the sharp end down, the big end up, and I put in 
a layer of eggs and a layer of bran, and another layer of eggs and another 
layer of bran, and keep that up until the barrel is full. When the barrel 
is full, I take some paper and put this paper over the top of the barrel, 
and I glue it on there tight. I put a lot of glue or paste around the top 
of the barrel and press this paper down so as to make it perfectly air- 
tight, and then, to make sure, I put two or three more layers on top and 
put glue around and then tie a string around it so that I am sure it is 
air tight. 

Along about Christmas time, or New Years, we open these barrels 
and put these eggs in cases and take them to town, and they bring us 
from forty-five to sixty cents per dozen. Now I have done this for years 
and years, with the exception of the last two years, I have not taken 
them to town. I have four or five grocerymen who come out here and 
offer me from 2% to 4% cents per dozen more for my eggs than they have 
to pay for storage eggs down town, which goes to show that my eggs 
must have been better than cold storage eggs, for you can rest assured that 
they would not be fighting and competing and paying me from 2*/2 to 4!/2 
cents per dozen more for my eggs than they do for cold storage eggs if 
they were not worth it. 



As I said before, you will find lots of good ways to preserve eggs. 
You will find lots of recipes in poultry journals, but the above is my way 
of preserving eggs. 



Should I Supply Moisture? 

By all means, use moisture. There are some parts of Texas and Col- 
orado where they have to sprinkle their eggs almost daily during incuba- 
tion or they would never hatch a chick. We keep water in tin pans in 
the bottom of our incubators at all times. You may ask "How much?" 
That all depends upon how dry a climate you live in, but you cannot use 
too much. 

Take for illustration again the hen that steals her nest out in the 
weeds in the spring of the year during the rainy season when the grass 
is wet almost continually, common sense teaches us and we know that 
she nearly always brings out a good hatch. 



Should I Hatch With a Hen or With an Incubator? 

If you haven't had any experience with an incubator, better try the 
old-fashioned way to start with and use the hen. You can always buy a 
broody hen from some of your neighbors if you haven't one. But be sure 
and let her set for two or three days before you place the eggs under her, 
so as to make sure that she has settled down and has gotten over her 
nervous spell, and you can rest assured she will do her duty. 

But if you have any knowledge at all about incubators, it is all right 
to use the incubator, providing you follow the instructions of the maker 
of your incubator, because if you intend to raise a large number of chickens 
you will have to use the incubator sooner or later, for it is impossible to 
get enough setting hens just when a person wants to use them. 

How to Keep Eggs for Hatching. 

Some claim that eggs should be set the same day they are laid. Now 
that is all wrong, and common sense will teach us better. The hen that 
steals her nest out in the weeds or under the woodpile lays an egg a day 
for sixteen or seventeen days, and sometimes more, before she starts to 
set on them, and invariably when the hatch comes off she will bring out 
fourteen or fifteen chicks. That is all the evidence we need. We always 
let our eggs cool and set at least twenty-four to thirty hours before we put 
them into the incubator or under the hen. 

I shipped eggs to a customer of mine 'way up to the midnight sun to 
Skagway, Alaska, and on account of them getting on the wrong steamer 
and having to bring them back to San Francisco, they were on their road 
seven weeks. Now just think of it — seven weeks — and they hatched over 
seventy per cent. 



As I have told you all through this book, this book is written by a 
man who has had actual experience, and it is not theory by a person who 
perhaps never raised a chicken, or may be raising a few in his back yard. 
You will find the man's name and his letter in my mating list who hatched 
the eggs in Skagway, Alaska. Now, if you want to keep your eggs for any 
length of time for hatching purposes, just place them on end in the 
regular ordinary egg case. Turn the egg case upside down once every 
twenty-four hours, and you can rest assured that they will hatch just as 
well in two or three weeks as they will the first few days. 

Remember, I am speaking from experience. I have shipped stock 
and eggs to almost every known place in this whole world. 



Fertility for Breeding Purposes. 

A hen will lay just as many eggs without being with the male bird, 
and an infertile egg will keep fresh a great deal longer than a fertile egg. 

When mating up for breeding purposes I never use the first four or 
six eggs that the hen lays. I generally wait until after the eighth or tenth 
egg before I use them for hatching. Some breeders claim that the eggs 
will be fertile on the second or third day. Now that is impossible ; at least 
I have found it so. 



How to Select the Laying Hen. 

Now, the way I select the laying hen is by her trap nest record, as 
I use trap nests in all of my breeding houses, and of course I always breed 
from the ones that have the biggest record. This is the way I established 
my big egg-producers. But for the ordinary person who does not use trap 
nests and only has a few chickens, just watch the hen that goes on the roost 
first in the evening. Go right in the hen house and chop her head off 
and eat her for your Sunday dinner. Another good and absolutely sure 
test is after the hens have all gone to roost, take a lantern and go into 
the hen house and feel of the hen's craw. The one that has a good, big, 
full craw you can rest assured has some egg material and is a good egg- 
producer and is a valuable hen and a hen you want to breed from. But 
the one that has a craw about the size of a marble — just use her for your 
Sunday dinner — you will never regret it. 

There are lots of tests, but I stake my reputation on the above, and 
you can rest assured that I have had some experience in raising egg-pro- 
ducers. 




START WITH GOOD STOCK-IT PAYS 

Roup, Gapes, Chicken Pox and Scaly Leg. 

Remove the filth, keep your chicken house on dry ground, and you 
will not be bothered with the above diseases. But sometimes chickens will 
catch the roup while in transit shipping them to and from the shows. The 
chickens may be put into an express car, and in that car there are a lot 
of roupy, mongrel chickens being shipped to the market, and the first 
thing you know your chickens have a case of roup. If so, just keep them 
in a good, dry, clean, hen house and swab their throats out three or four 
times a week by dipping a feather in some coal oil, and let them have 
plenty of fresh air and your roup or gapes will disappear. 

It also happens quite often that chickens will catch chicken pox while 
in transit and being placed alongside of a shipment of common market 
chickens. If so, just wash their comb and wattles good with warm water 
and apply carbolated vaseline three or four times a week and your chicken 
pox will disappear. 

In case of scaly leg, just take equal parts of coal oil and sweet oil, 
dip the bird's legs into this mixture three or four times a week, and your 
scaly legs will disappear. 

All of the above I know to be positive facts by actual experience. 



Lice and Mites and How to Keep Your Chickens Looking Nice 

and Clean. 

I do not have any lice or mites on my farm, and if you ever visit my 
farm, you are at liberty to examine any or all of my five to six thousand 
birds, and you will find out that I am telling you the truth. Why? Because 
we dust all of our hens about once a month, and in that way they never 
get started. 

Remember, a lousy hen will never lay enough eggs to pay for her 
feed. What do I use for dusting? I use five pounds of sulphur and five 



pounds of naphthaline mixed with a wheelbarrow full of common road 
dust; just dust gathered in the road. 

But now I am going to give you a secret that is worth more than the 
price of this book. If you raise white chickens, in the place of using road 
dust, use flour. I raise nothing but white chickens, and I mix common 
flour with the sulphur and naphthaline, and that is why people when visit- 
ing my farm always say, "Oh, my ! your chickens look so nice and clean and 
white. 

Kemember, there is nothing nicer than a flock of clean, nice, pure 
white chickens. 

Breaking Up Broody Hens. 

Some breeders starve them, some dip them in water, and Lord knows 
what all they do do to them. 

Now, when we go around in the evening to shut the hen house doors, 
we look in the nest. If there is a hen in the nest, ninety-nine chances in 
a hundred, she is broody. We have a common market chicken coop hanging 
in a tree, bottom side up so that the slats are on the bottom. We place 
her in there for twenty-four to thirty-six hours and she is ready to go 
back to work again. You understand she has to stand on these slats all 
the time, the wind blowing up through her fluff feathers, and she has no 
place to sit down. She will soon get over her broodiness. 

Now, I keep fresh water and feed in cups for them all of the time 
while in this coop, and in that way I know that I am not injuring the hen. 
Some may have better ways, but the above is my way. 

Sprouted Oats, or Feed for Ten or Fifteen Cents a Bushel, as Some 

Call It. 

Now, this is one of the greatest egg-producers or food there is for 
winter egg production, because it gives the birds green food in winter 
time, which they must have in order to do well, and especially the male 
bird for fertility. Now, I have seven boxes, each two feet wide, five feet 
long, and four inches deep. I take a bushel of oats, put them in a tub 
in the evening, pour warm water over them ; that is, water warm enough 
so that the chill is taken off. I let them soak until morning; then I pour 
them in the above named boxes and lay a wet sack over them; every day 
I stir them up with my hand and take the sprinkling can and soak the sack 
good and heavy with water. In seven days it is sprouted long enough 
to feed. The reason I have seven of these boxes is 
because it gives me one for every day in the week. 
I feed one a day and start a new one every day. A 
bushel of sprouted oats is enough for about twelve 
hundred laying hens : at least that is the way I feed 
it. Of course others may feed differently, but there 
is one thing sure, no one has ever been able to beat 
my egg records. That is, no breeder has ever been 
able to get as much money out of eggs per hen as I 




have. If there has, I would be thankful if some poultry journal would 
make mention of it. 



How to Keep Male Birds From Fighting. 

Here is a secret worth one hundred times the price of this book: 
Several years ago, in the early part of July, when I broke up my 
breeding pens and separated my males and females, I turned all the male 
birds out together in one big yard to prepare them for their molting 
season. They got to fighting and one of my best male birds got killed ; in 
fact, a bird that I had refused three hundred and fifty dollars for. I had 
trimmed all their spurs before putting them into this yard, but there 
seemed to be one bird in the yard that was the champion over all the rest. 
I got angry and went in and caught him, took my pocket knife and cut 
the end off o±* his beak. There was peace in that yard from then on. That 
taught me a new trick, and I have used that principle ever since, and I 
do not have any more bloody birds with torn combs. Just find out the 
fighter and cut off the point of his beak; just the little hard part. Be 
careful not to cut too deep so as to make it bleed or injure the bird. If 
properly done it will not harm the bird any more than to trim the point 
of your finger nail. This one thing has saved me many a good male bird. 



NOTICE 



If you will send ten cents in stamps to the Kellerstrass 
Farm, Kansas City, Mo., you will receive their illustrated 
Catalogue. The book is very nearly twice as large as this 
one. It contains pictures of the highest priced birds in the 
world; also, illustrations and pictures of their brood and nur- 
sery yards, buildings and runways of various descriptions; 
in fact, it gives you an illustration of the World's Greatest 
Poultry Plant, and shows you a good many general views of 
the farm and buildings. It also gives prices of the stock 
they have for sale. 



IMPORTANT 



Remember, that I am in the Poultry Business, and a person to make a 
success in the Poultry Business has to be out working with his chickens and 
look after them, and that is what I do. It keeps me busy, so don't expect me 
to personally answer your letter. I have tried to give you all the informa- 
tion I can in this book. I have received as high as six hundred letters in one 
day and the majority of them found their way into the waste-basket, because 
it is impossible for me to answer them. By the time I answer the letters of 
people who want to buy stock and eggs and tend to my chickens I have 
usually put in from sixteen to eighteen hours a day. So don't expect an 
answer to your letter unless it is of some importance. 

Yours truly, 

ERNEST KELLERSTRASS. 



Fidelity Printing Company 
kansas city 



NOV 19 



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